I am beyond grateful to receive this amazing book review of Singing Waters by Tom Sacramona in Frogpond!
“Johnette Downing has been writing haiku for a long time, and she even co-founded the former New Orleans Haiku Society, so we are beyond excited about his selection of poetry, Singing Waters. Many haiku cover the complexities of relationships and delight in music and other rhythms that syncopate our lives. Darrell Bourque, former Louisiana Poet Laureate, rightly has this to say of Singing Waters (from the back cover): “In these poems, Insight is everything.” My favorite poems are the extremely perceptive haiku that emphasize just how aware Downing is of the poetry within her surroundings and just how receptive she is to the haiku moment:
hole in the cloud
my nephew calls
for more money
roofers next door
their shadows
work on my house
There are over 100 poems included in the book, which is edited by Stanford Forrester—a few in sequences, plus two special haibun “New Orleans,” celebrating the tradition of jazz funerals, and “Hurricane Katrina,” recounting the poet’s ordeal and suffering through that natural catastrophe:
flooding neighboring states
hurricane
evacuees
Driven by her musician’s ear, it is Downing’s sense of hearing that we find most often provides her imaginative leap from thought to poetry:
roller coaster
leaving my voice
at the top
so quiet
I hear his apology
coming
‘I have lived my entire life near water, and naturally, as a musician, I hear music in water,” Downing says in the introduction. ‘There is music in haiku as well; therefore, I have divided this book into water chapters to evoke a mood even thought few poems are about water. I hope you enjoy the score.’ The section groupings skillfully add meaning and layers to them. The chapter ‘Bayou’ lovingly contains poems about her family and memories growing up in Louisiana while the chapter ‘Ocean’ records traveling experiences farther from home:
dark bayou
a fish jumps
through the moon
magnolia blossom
I unfold the kimono
instructions
I’ll liken Singing Waters to a great record—I found myself returning to it again for certain haiku in the days after finishing it because I either wanted to experience a pleasant phrasing or recognize one of the poem’s insights over again.”
—Tom Sacramona, Editor, Frogpond, Volume 45:2 Spring/Summer 2022